Fishing at the bottom of the world: a Nat Pagle experience
by DougWalkerJumpScareOnMyGenital
Summary: Nat Pagle is the one of the most renowned and achieved fisherman and drinkers on Azeroth, but when an old friend talks the since washed up Nat into sailing to the new continent known as Pandaria, Nat finds his begrudged love of fishing rekindled, and soon finds himself putting up to the task of angling a fish that is more legend than real; a feat that will push Nat past his limits.


He lifted the dark clay jug to his dry, but still sticky from jungle heat lips. Small shingles of stuck together dirt broke off and plummeted back down to the sandy ground below as he swigged the last contents of the foul-tasting brew. Belching, he tossed it aside; it landed with a dull clunk next to half a dozen other jugs, causing a few more pieces of caked dirt to pop into the air as the new jug settled next to its new brethren.

And then, with the only a slight, faint jerk on his line to alert him, he flicked his rod, setting the hook, belched again, and reeled hard. The line shot back out, the whine of his line hitting a steady, continuous ear-splitting note as the fish swam further out to the sea. Leaning himself back on his improvised seat of a fallen dead tree, he let the fish play its game for a few moments before bringing the rod in tight, stopping the fish in enough water that it would feel content not to tug hard enough to break the line.

He belched once more, and began slowly working the fish into him, inch by inch. The fish resisted with every revolution of his reel, taking the line back out into the water, wearing itself down. Finally, after intense minutes of carefully letting the fish tire out, he had it within fifty yards of the shore. He licked his lips and with one hand off the rod, reached down to scoop up a new, full jug. Suddenly, however, the fish jerked hard, and the loud _'twap!' _that came and died in an instant preluded the way that his line, just a moment before tight and straight, was now slack and curled in loose loops, the end of it frayed and missing the hook.

He belched one last time as he twisted the cork off of his jug with a hollow _'pop!'_. It seemed like a huge one, too. Oh well.

Nat Pagle, master fish and booze enthusiast, choked down another series of gulps before setting his brew back down and reeling in his line. Troll beer, while fairly strong, was absolutely awful. It would get you nice and licked, that was for sure, but he heard they fermented it using the fecal matter of jungle creatures or, if the truly grotesque rumor was to be held true, their _own_ fecal matter. Still, to Nat, drink was drink and he'd built up either a tolerance or a lack of mind to whatever it was the trolls brewed, and with the raise-fall-raise again-fall again of the neighborhood Gurubashi trolls stores of the acrid jugs, taken by victorious invaders of the Horde and Alliance, were in high supply and very low demand.

Which meant, for Nat, he could afford all the drink he needed on his meager salary of dwindling royalties and days spent motionless on the hot Stranglethorn shoreline.

He and fishing had an odd, mixed relationship. He used to do it when he was younger, just for the hell of having something to do. He even earned a little money, selling some of his catch. For him, though, fishing had mostly been an excuse to not have to do anything more physically demanding, and having a reason to get absolutely plastered on whatever he could find was only the icing on the cake.

He began working a new hook onto his line, this time breaking out one of his secret weapons; a short length of iron wire, which he tied to the end of his line, and then worked the hook onto the other end. Close examination of his line had shown him that whatever just broke his line didn't _break _the line, but had _cut _it. He reckoned he must have hooked it in the very corner of the mouth, away from its teeth, but as he pulled it towards the shore and the fish was forced to straighten out lax, head-first, the line slipped into its field of bite, and the would-be hapless catch got away. He highly doubted it'd bite again, but if it did, he'd be ready for the little bastard.

It was only by unintended chance that he ever got very good at his craft. They say the greatest fisherman is the man who can sit still the longest, and Nat had that part down in spades. Then, somehow or another, he just began picking up tricks, techniques and other know-hows that increased his ability to haul in fish. Whether it was through some subconscious desire to improve himself or he just had one hell of a memory, he- belching again- would never really care.

Setting the hook with a particularly bloody flank of meat, Nat cast back out and settled himself into his tree. He was still sober enough to make out the swaying movements of his cork bobber far out in the water, but before soon he'd put a fix to that. Raising the jug back to him mouth for yet another swig, he was suddenly interrupted by the crunching of hot sand under heavy foot and a voice that shouted out; _"Nat! Hey, Nat!"_

Nat lowered the jug, and glanced off to his side, as an old, but recently all-too familiar, friend approached him. "Nat!" he said again, reaching Nat's tree-seat.

Nat corked the bottle again and set it back down, this time to the side of his legs closest to his friend, in a subtle fisherman's invitation to sit down and drink. The man obliged and sat down, taking his own swig of the foul tasting liquid and shivering only a little as he downed it past his short, dirty beard. "Nat." he said again. Nat acted like nothing, just focusing on the bobbing of his lure, but internally he was annoyed. He knew what was coming.

"We're leaving soon." His friend said, letting the clay jug drop to the sand. "C'mon, now. This's your chance to fish in a place no one, no outsider at least, has fished in… well, a long time!"

The excitement in his friend's voice was matched only by the faintly implied plea that Nat join along. Nat jerked on his line, in a mock show of being enveloped in his fishing. Yup, it was quite unintended he ever get all that good at fishing, but somehow or some way he did, and suddenly everything changed. He found himself, slowly at first but it didn't take long to really get going, fishing in more and more places. Widespread at first, the occasional jaunt down to the Loch in the Dwarven Lands, deep-lake fishing for pike that was longer than he was, or fishing for reef shark off the coasts of Westfall. But then, 'widespread' began to meet with 'exotic' and even 'dangerous', and part of him that he didn't want to admit he had- enjoyed it.

Suddenly he found himself in expeditions into places like the Dustwallow, fishing in smoking mires and rivers for catfish so big and dauntless, you could gut them and find dozens of black whelping corpses and even the occasional small drake or two, or miles out in the screw-all Barrens, fishing shallow pools for fish no one else had ever caught before, documenting the species in between ducking out of view of patrolling centaur and plains raptors. Though he'd never admit it, he was proud it say he landed a half-ton river bass from the Felwood, a place no one expected any normal fish to live anymore, let alone ones so giant.

Mingled in between all these journeys and expeditions came the eventual notoriety and then the fame. With his name out in the world, he signed a stack of contracts every now and again with a few goblins and before he knew it, he was swimming in gold from royalties made from selling showy, expensive and relatively ineffective fishing gear, all branded with his namesake. A more noble fisherman might have refused as much, but Nat was not that kind of fisherman. Still, as much as he hated it, he eventually gave up the fame and fortune racket, told the gold-pinching goblins to beat it and before he knew it, he was back to doing what he loved: sitting on his butt getting drunk and catching the now-and-again fish. His fame slowly deteriorated and his name fell in and out of notability, while his cash reserves started to sink as his adventurous side forced him into more and more world-wide trips, fishing in places he had no business coming out alive of.

And now he was here, sitting in Stranglethorn, drinking down the last of his crap-beer and fishing in a place that, some twenty years ago, would have had him timid and feared out of his wits but had long since become just another little place to sit down, fish and get drunk. But now, an old friend and angler-buddy sniffed him out and was eager to recruit him on some fishing expedition to some island that, prior to just months ago, no one even knew existed. He belched again as he felt his line jerk suddenly in his hands, and he set the reel and began working the hook.

"John." He finally said, his sun and alcohol cracked lips forming the words even as his mind and hands were busy with the catch, "I've had enough running around."

"Bah." John said, lifting the jug to take another sip despite his mouth's pleas to never pass the fetid brew past it ever again, "This ain't no runnin' around, Nat. We got a clear goal in mind, and there's hospitality and civilization waiting fer' us the whole down way through."

Nat had the hook set and was absent mindedly playing with the fish again, working to wear it out for an easy reel-in, even as his arm reached out to grab his jug back and take another deep swig. "I'm fine right here, John." He said, for what he felt was around the dozen'th time. John had been pretty persistent in trying to track down and convince Nat to go, and he knew John well. The man once spent two days holding in a fish on his line, even throughout the night in a river swarming with crocolisk. The guy was used to getting what he was after.

John took the outstretched jug and drank again himself, wiping his sweat-alcohol doused mustache off with the back of a muddy hand. "I mean it, Nat. Really. We can see fish no human n'er orc n'er troll n'er whatever has seen in thousands of years." He passed the jug back, and with a thought, added "And they've got beer, too!"

Nat had heard some of the rumors, but as long as he had a place to fish and a jug to drink, he'd be alright. The fish was tiring quickly, and something in the back of his mind lit up; it was the fish from before, and this time, it was _on_. Nat worked it, letting it run out but always keeping it within view and never letting it get near any of the rolling, whirling pools being created by water passing over large, submerged rocks. He chugged deep this time, a sign he wanted to end the conversation quickly, and as he downed the last of the vile concoction, he pulled one last time, breaching his catch up into the shallows and then finally onto the shore. A small, small reef shark. Smallest he'd ever caught. Hell, smallest he'd ever _seen_.

He tossed the jug behind him and watched the small shark flop helplessly on the sand before him. Sighing, he flipped it onto his foot, reached down to pull out both of his hooks, and then gave it a kick back into the water, where it quickly disappeared back into the dark blue ocean. Beside him, John stood up. "Alright, Nat." he said in defeat. "We're leaving tonight, but take it your way." He began to walk, leaving Nat's small camp.

Nat just sat silently, re-baiting his bent, rusted hook with the last and pathetically tiny piece of meat he had left. He reached for another jug, but found nothing but sand and mushy dirt.

"They offer the booze for free, too, to any fisherman." John said, his back still turned, trailing off into the rustling foliage of green, arching jungle plants. On his lone tree, Nat cursed, kicked a bit of sand, ripped the small hunk of meat off his hook and tossed it into the water.

The sound of long-empty jugs tumbling on top of each other was all John needed to hear to know that Nat was following him.


End file.
